aders were mum; but in the late
evening, after having digested our political pabulum, we were ready to
join issue with any antagonist. Indeed, each of us might have used the
words of James Russell Lowell, written while he was traveling on the
Continent and visiting many places where _The Nation_ could not be
bought: "All the time I was without it, my mind was chaos and I didn't
feel that I had a safe opinion to swear by."[173]

While the farmer of the Western Reserve and Lowell are extreme types of
clientele, each represents fairly well the peculiar following of Greeley
and of Godkin, which differed as much as did the personal traits of the
two journalists. Godkin speaks of Greeley's "odd attire, shambling gait,
simple, good-natured and hopelessly peaceable face, and long yellow
locks."[174] His "old white hat and white coat," which in New York were
regarded as an affectation, counted with his following west of the
Hudson River as a winning eccentricity. When he came out upon the
lecture platform with crumpled shirt, cravat awry, and wrinkled coat
looking as if he had traveled for a number of nights and days, such
disorder appeared to many of his Western audiences as nothing worse than
the mark of a very busy man, who had paid them the compliment of
leaving his editorial rooms to speak to them in person, and who had
their full sympathy as he thus opened his discourse, "You mustn't, my
friends, expect fine words from a rough busy man like me."[175]

The people who read the _Tribune_ did not expect fine words; they were
used to the coarse, abusive language in which Greeley repelled attacks,
and to his giving the lie with heartiness and vehemence. They enjoyed
reading that "another lie was nailed to the counter," and that an
antagonist "was a liar, knowing himself to be a liar, and lying with
naked intent to deceive."[176]

On the contrary, the dress, the face, and the personal bearing of Godkin
proclaimed at once the gentleman and cultivated man of the world. You
felt that he was a man whom you would like to meet at dinner, accompany
on a long walk, or cross the Atlantic with, were you an acquaintance or
friend.

An incident related by Godkin himself shows that at least one
distinguished gentleman did not enjoy sitting at meat with Greeley.
During the spring of 1864 Godkin met Greeley at breakfast at the house
of Mr. John A. C. Gray. William Cullen Bryant, at that time editor of
the New York _Evening Post_, was one of